There was no end to Khan Sahib’s love of horses. He especially liked black horses. He always kept a half dozen horses in his stables in Bannu. They were all black. One purebred bay had been given to him as a gift. But he only liked the black on its tail and legs. He often said, ‘In our tribe, it’s forbidden to marry a bad marksman, a man whose ancestors were the killed and not the killers, and a man whose horse consistently bucks him off. I’ve always had horses. Even back in those days when I had nothing and went around on a brakeless bike, even then, outside my house there was a black stallion standing there neighing.’ Someone asked him, ‘How does that make sense, Khan Sahib?’ And he said, ‘For one, in our village, going everywhere on horseback was considered arrogant. Second, the horse was old. It was the last token I had of my father. My grandfather raised me. He hated any sign of arrogance. He used to say, “Always walk with your head bowed. This is the mark of a true Pakhtun.” I’d just become a teenager. My blood was running hot. One day I was walking with my chest puffed out and my head raised so high and mighty that all I could see was the sky. He crossed my path. He stopped me. He grabbed the slingshot that my younger brother was carrying. Then he rammed its two ends into the back of my head so forcefully that my head bowed so low that all I could see were my heels. I promised to never strut around so proudly ever again. I took the slingshot and began to give it to my brother. But he stopped me. “Keep it,” he said. “It will become useful. In old age, you can use it to prop up your chin.” ’
A Gypsy Song
When Khan Sahib, along with his hangers-on, would visit the poor areas where the Pathans lived, he would leap for joy when he saw a big stone lying on the road. He would stop. He would challenge the youths in his travelling party to lift it up. If no one could, then he would roll up his shirtsleeves, go forward, and, saying ‘Yah, Ali!’ lift it above his head. The passers-by, as well as the neighbour kids, would stop to watch. When he had to pass through Karachi’s nice, clean neighbourhoods, like PECHS, Bath Island, and KDA1, then he would get disappointed and say, ‘What kind of shithole is this that there isn’t a single big rock for a real man to lift up? In my village growing up there were so many boulders just lying around. We used to crawl on top of them and curse out our enemies. Or we would lean against them and relax. In the winter, the old folks would sit on these boulders with their slate-coloured blankets wrapped around them so that all you could see were their two eyes. Using the excuse of wanting to warm up in the sun, they kept an eye on the village’s kids. And when, having come from the community well, the teenage girls — whose fair arms were as hard to get a hold of as fish in shallow water — would pass by with water pots on their heads, then the village’s raring boys sat on these boulders watching them, and just from hearing the splish-splash of water in the pots, they could tell whose pot was filled to the brim, whose was half-empty, and which girls were smiling behind their veils. They could tell by a girl’s gait whether she was wearing a skintight kurta beneath her heavy robes or whether she had brushed her teeth white with walnut paste. These girls walked with eyes in the back of their heads; they could tell who was watching them and what they were thinking. Where the four villages met near Malik Jahangir Khan’s watchtower, there was a triangular boulder that lay half swallowed by the earth and half protruding like a demon’s giant paw. It still has the marks that I left fifty years ago when using them for target practice on Eid. One bullet ricocheted off the boulder and into Nasir Gul’s thigh. He was a good-looking young boy. Rumours spread about him. His dad yelled at him, “You son-of-a-bitch! I’ll shoot such big holes in both your legs that a quilt-full of cotton won’t be enough to staunch the gushing blood!” If anyone fired a round amidst the village’s silence, the mountains near and far would double and then treble the sound into a great echo that made us tremble and quake in fear, and the women prayed that God would bring back their husbands safe and sound.’
Khan Sahib expressed his love and hatred through ‘weightlifting.’ I mean, if he lost an argument, he would lift up his adversary and throw him to the ground. And if he met a friend whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, or if an unenviable physical specimen such as myself happened to greet him, then, as he embraced us, he would shake us as violently as you would a tree heavy with fruit. From his excess of love, he would lift us into the air, and then, with our foreheads at lip level, he would kiss us and then release us so that we would drop to the ground like Newton’s apple.
Likewise, one of his favourite tunes (which he was always humming) indicated that he liked his beloved because he could lift her with both hands and put her on his head like he could a water pot:
My dear, come, become the water pot in my arms
I’ll put you in my heart, then put you on my head.
While singing, he would trace out with his mutilated finger a diagonal line across his chest, as though,
I thought that you too were stuck on top my head.
It wasn’t just her weight that he liked. He also considered her physical resemblance to a water pot (while not an absolute necessity) to be a big plus.
11.
Greetings!
Truth Be Told
As far as telling the truth is concerned, Khan Sahib was as helpless as we are when sneezing. There was nothing that could stop him from speaking his mind (and from burping). If anyone got dejected or angry because of something he said, he rested content that he had spoken the truth. He loved the truth as much as we love hiccups and poets love their just written ghazals. In French, a good writer is called an ‘auteur,’ and a good lover is called an ‘amateur.’ And, just like these examples, in Sindhi, someone who always tells the truth is called a ‘sachar.’ He belonged to this tribe. Once he asked a man right when meeting him, ‘What are you trying to accomplish by having such a big mustache?’ The man was offended. Khan Sahib said, ‘Sorry. I’m an ignorant man. I asked because I really didn’t know.’ One time he asked Khalil Ahmad Khan Rind (the Boozer), ‘Sorry, please, but were you born sick or have you ruined your health on purpose? Did your father too use the alias Khan?’ The man was a rough and ready Pathan from Rohilkhand. He became really angry, then asked, ‘What do you mean?’ Khan Sahib replied, ‘I was just asking. I mean, a stag doesn’t come from its mother’s womb with a full set of antlers.’ One time he asked Basharat, ‘You have a silk drawstring. Other than it’s always coming undone, is there some reason you prefer it?’ Another time he scolded Basharat very harshly in front of several friends, ‘Please, yaraji, sorry, but I’m an ignorant man. Why do you go around all day saying, “Greetings! Greetings! Greetings!” Is a simple “hello” not good enough for you?’